Savannah, Georgia, May 6 — Earlier in our coverage of One Lap of America 2005 we noted that a key trait that distinguishes truly talented drivers is their ability to quickly learn the subtleties of circuits they've never seen before.

We've seen examples of this at New Hampshire International Speedway, day three of this year's tour, and on the irritatingly tricky Shenandoah circuit at West Virginia's Summit Point Motorsports Park.

Thursday on the Roebling Road road course not far from Savannah, we had an opportunity to see another key trait that separates the quick from the wannabes: The ability to deal with rain. Lots of rain.

When the One Lap field assembled Thursday morning, the Roebling paddock was already spattered with good-sized puddles, and the track glistened with small but menacing areas of standing water.

A damp racetrack is tricky and obviously slower than a dry one, but standing water elevates the degree of difficulty by several orders of magnitude.

The problem is caused by a phenomenon called hydroplaning. When the car's tires hit a puddle, they can lose contact with the pavement. Particularly when those tires are designed for dry pavement grip, and can't pump water away from the contact patch as efficiently as tires designed for wet conditions.

As a consequence, when all four tires hit a stretch of standing water, the car is essentially floating, and control inputs — steering, brakes — cease to produce the desired effect.

Massive horsepower is almost a liability in really soggy conditions, particularly in rear-drive cars, and some of the normal front-runners found themselves struggling to simply keep their cars on the track, let alone turn in quick lap times.

With a steady rain continuing throughout the morning and early afternoon, steadily deteriorating conditions allowed something other than Corvettes, Vipers, and Porsches to get a share of the spotlight.

Tops in the previously unsung category was the Subaru WRX STi of Dan and Ben Schaut, a father-and-son team from Wisconsin. The all-wheel drive Subie posted the tenth-fastest time in the morning round, then followed that up by splashing its way to second-fastest in the slower (and even wetter) second session.

Another car that shamed some of the nominally faster traffic was the Chrysler 300C SRT-8 that's been dominating the Luxury Sedan class since the opening round.

The driving talent isn't a surprise. Chrysler development engineer Erich Heuschele has two Sports Car Club of America national championships on his racing resume.

But it is surprising that Heuschele was able to herd this 4000-pound, 500-horsepower monster to the fourth quickest time in the first run, despite slithering off the track briefly, and third quickest in the nightcap.

Another driver who put in an impressive performance in these nasty conditions was Mark DaVia.

Having a well-prepared all-wheel drive Porsche 911 Turbo gave the defending One Lap champ an edge over the fast rear-drive cars, but the really noteworthy aspect of his performance was how completely he controlled the tactical situation, maintaining just enough of an edge to trump the competition while minimizing his element of risk.

It was the personification of an old, old piece of racing adage: Go as slow as you can and still win.

With the field packing its soggy gear for the 800-mile run to Nelson Ledges Road Racing Circuit near Warren, Ohio, winning is what DaVia is poised to do. The Connecticut driver held a 100-point edge over Brian Smith and the John Hennessey Dodge Viper, an advantage only disaster could overcome.

Having observed DaVia's consistent performance throughout this and the 2004 One Lap tours, we regard this as unlikely.

Then again, stranger things have happened, and a mistake at Nelson Ledges, arguably the fastest track on this year's schedule, can have big consequences.

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